This invention relates to exercise equipment and more particularly to a highly functional and portable exercise apparatus that can provide both assistance for some body weight exercises as well as added resistance for a number of common exercise maneuvers.
References:
U.S. Patent DocumentsRe. 34,212April 1993Potts3,752,473August 1973LaLanne4,111,414September 1978Roberts4,335,875June 1982Elkin4,441,707April 1984Bosch4,781,374November 1988Lederman4,852,874August 1989Sleichter, III et al.4,949,956August 1990Pobran5,011,139April 1991Towley, III5,042,796August 1991Jibril5,108,096April 1992Ponce5,322,489June 1994Webb et al.5,328,432July 1994Gvoich5,372,556December 1994Ropp5,407,404April 1995Killian et al.5,499,959March 1996Holmes et al.5,514,059May 1996Romney5,518,486May 1996Sheeler5,681,248October 1997Vani5,776,033July 1998Brown5,839,994November 1998Elbogen5,871,422February 1999Elbogen6,179,748January 2001Barr6,244,998June 2001Hinds6,368,258April 2002EmlawOther Publications:The Men's Health Home Workout Bible, Lou Schuler, et al., p. 81, 2002, Rodale Inc., USA
Exercising in the gym, home and on travel is growing in popularity due in part to the awareness of the health benefits derived from regular exercise regimes. A wide variety of venues, equipment and associated activities exist for such purposes.
Through exercise individuals build and tone their muscles by performing multiple exercise repetitions using various pieces of equipment, however many exercises require very little equipment and some are performed with nothing more than the exerciser's own body weight. These so-called “body weight exercises” are generally multi-joint movements that substantially contribute to overall muscular development, balance, coordination and core strength. Not only do the chin-up and the dip represent some of the best exercises from this category, they represent some of the best exercises—period. Yet most individuals can't perform them because they require great upper body strength.
The chin-up (or for equivalent purposes here—the pull-up) is one of the best exercises for the upper back and arms. It is performed when the user grasps an overhead bar or other appropriate apparatus and raises himself/herself from a fully extended hanging position to a fully raised position when the user's chin in substantially at the same vertical position as the user's hands. The chin-up is a full body weight exercise that is so difficult that the vast majority of the population is unable to perform even a single repetition.
The dip is another highly beneficial full body weight exercise. It is used for building the chest, arms and shoulders and it is most often performed on a pair of sturdy, separated parallel handles from where the user supports and balances his entire hanging body on straight, stiff arms extended down along his sides. By bending the arms at the elbow the user lowers his body as far as possible and then pushes his full body weight straight up by straightening the arms for a single repetition. Like the chin-up, the dip is also difficult and very few people have the ability to perform a single repetition.
Chin-up and dip exercise equipment is readily available and accessible so that chin-ups and dips can be performed in gyms and fitness centers as well as in the home and anywhere appropriate apparatus can be found. Common equipment provided to use for these exercises include overhead bars for chin-ups and separated parallel handles for dips. This equipment can be simple and dedicated or it may be integrated with other exercise stations. A standard bar across a doorway for chin-ups or a pair of handles attached to a set of upright supports for dips are all that is necessary to perform these exercises. Other types of devices have emerged such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,179,748 to Barr, where a different type of doorjamb engaging device is described. However, gyms, fitness centers and larger home multi-station pieces of exercise equipment may provide chin-up and/or dipping stations along with other exercise stations as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,374 to Lederman that discloses such a piece of equipment.
Therefore, a multi-function device with the ability to assist an exerciser perform a chin-up and/or a dip and which is also portable and adaptable for use on the variety of different types of chin-up and/or dip stations provided for use in gyms and the home would help many individuals gain from the benefits of these exercises.
Assisted means for performing chin-ups and dips are not only highly useful for those individuals whom can't perform the body weight exercises on their own, they are also very useful for individuals whom have reached fatigue with unassisted exercises and wish to carry on with post fatigue exercise repetitions with a lower percentage of body weight. In either case the assistance provided helps the exerciser perform the full range of motion exercise, whereas unaided these repetitions would not have been performed and the associated muscle building and toning benefits left unachieved.
However, assisted means for performing chin-ups and dips are well known. By providing the ability to perform the chin-up or dip with less effort than that required to lift the entire exerciser's body weight, an exerciser can perform more repetitions of these highly beneficial exercises. A common method of self-assistance involves placing a chair or other sturdy object under a chin-up bar to allow the exerciser to push up with his legs as described in The Men's Health Home Workout Bible. This technique works well, however it is difficult for the exerciser to provide a consistent level of assistance and therefore more difficult for the exerciser to chart progress, an important part of most exercise routines.
Another technique is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,414 to Roberts that discloses a cable and pulley system that is used to supply an upward body weight counteracting force to a harness that supports the exerciser. This system however, is not portable and fairly awkward to operate.
In addition, large complicated exercise machines with freestanding frames have also been developed to assist a user in performing a chin-up, a dip, or both. These systems offer a platform, pad or bar onto which a user must position the feet or knees that then helps raise the exerciser albeit subjected to the restricted armature motion of such devices. Examples of these include: U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,404 to Killian et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,139 to Towley, III; U.S. Pat. No. 4,849,458 to Potts; U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,489 to Webb et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,556 to Ropp; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,959 by Holmes et al.
All these devices counteract a percentage of the users body weight by providing a vertical force and thereby allow the user to perform the exercise by lifting only a select percentage of their body weight. While these machines can be very helpful, they can also be awkward and unnatural to use and they are large, complicated, expensive, certainly not portable, and usually only found in very well stocked gyms and fitness centers.
Therefore there remains a need for a device that can easily transform the other more simple and prolific pieces of exercise equipment for performing chin-ups and dips into assisted exercise stations offering relative safety and comfort so that users of all levels can benefit from these exercises wherever this equipment is located. This would allow exercisers to perform these exercises within the home or at gyms and fitness centers equipped with basic equipment and therefore avoid the inconvenience and/or the expense of travelling to a specific gym that has such equipment. Preferably such a device would also be both multi-functional and portable.
Exercise devices offering multi-functionality and portability have become popular for exercising in the home and on travel. However many multi-function, portable exercise devices are neither truly multi-function nor portable and therefore to obtain a good full-body workout using this type of equipment may require the person to carry a number of different pieces of equipment—an expensive solution and a contradiction to travelling light.
One category of truly multi-functional, portable exercise equipment possesses extensible, elastomeric lengths of material that create elastic resistances in order to work the muscles. The most common type of device in this category possesses a length of elastic rubber tubing approximately four to five feet long and terminated by a securely connected handle at each end for the user to grasp. The user can truly perform a number of different resistance exercises with this type of device by stretching the tubing in a variety of directions and using a variety of engagement techniques to work different muscle groups.
Various adaptations on this theme have arisen mostly to specialize on a different variety of exercise choices. Some examples of these include: U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,874 issued to Sleichter et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,096 issued to Ponce; U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,248 issued to Vani; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,998 issued to Hinds. While these portable devices possess varied degrees of multi-functionality, some are specifically designed for a single exercise making true multi-functionality awkward and cumbersome and none of these are designed to offer assistance for both the chin-up and dip.
Therefore there still remains the need for a device that is highly portable and functional such that it can assist an exerciser in performing a variety of highly beneficial full body weight exercises such as the chin-up and dip on any piece of equipment suitably designed for such exercises as well as offer the functionality and features that enable the exerciser to perform other traditional resistance exercises with only small changes in the devices configuration.